Passion's Death..

Princess of daylight
Of moonlight beams
Of a starry night
That holds the screams

I besiege you
Come out of the dark
Change my life
Ignite that spark

I am but a whisper
Of your breath
The seed that feeds off
Of your shining rays

Of a cold winter of the heart
The chills that fill my soul create a turbulent start

I cannot fathom life
I cannot understand you
I try to push you away
But the farther I push, the more I want you back

Tell me what it is I am to do?
When you would not allow an interlude?

In my heart
I am torn
In my soul
I am lost
In my life
I have no belief
The chosen path
Consequences defeat

I grow old as nature would pass me by
Is this the way that I shall always live my life?
The red rose in my hand
Petals flow in the air
Has passion died?
Is there no more flair?

no more remakes! please!

What is it with these people?

All of a sudden every movie developer/writer/star want to continue or remake their past successes into a newly developed movie.

Is it a new trend? Or has Hollywood finally kicked the bucket on new original ideas for its movies?

Seriously, it's getting so pathetic that even I don't think its funny.

Robocop's original writer wants to revisit the franchise in consideration of local controversial politics these days.

Somebody stop them - please..

Iron Man

After losing a few minutes in the introduction while trying to get a decent parking spot near the cinema here in Muscat, a few more snippets of the movie our dear censorship board decides that it is indecent (not to self: must get dvd for this movie); you attempt to understand just what is going in the movie.

Iron Man is basically a movie about some top military weapons scientist who owns a billionare empire that gets its money out of selling the latest high tech sophisticated weapons system in the world. All that he has in this world is his dear son who goes on to attend to his dad's business and his best friend who steps in to takeover the business when he dies.

His son takes up the neccessary education to follow in his father's footsteps but turns out to be one big playboy with not one care in the world except for womanizing. The story then goes on to a military demonstration in some remote location. The demonstration is successful but delivering it, and in an attempt to return home, his 'fleet' is ambushed and the story continues on from there on he changes his mind 180 degrees and reaccounts himself for his past mistakes and decides to change the world by becoming the hero of the movie: Iron Man.

Overall good fun family movie. It's mostly CGI action generated and not much violence but good sense of humor.

They have already green lit production for Iron Man 2.

This movie is being shown at Al Shatti Plaza.

review: Comex 2008

Don't even bother going there. Its the same old pathetic exhibition that they put on every year, only worse.

On the shopper's side, there are most of the companies that deal with technology and telecommunications such as Omantel; Oman Mobile; Nawras; SonyEricsson; Nokia; Dell; HP; DTK and a number of others which don't come to mind right now. All offering the same stuff that they do through their agents here in Oman except at a higher price at the exhibition.

The one thing that I got to confirm is that there is no price capping for the 1Mbps; 2Mbps; and 4Mbps broadband connections from Omantel. Say, for instance, that you purchase the 4Mbps connection, you pay the 39 Rials fee and get a 5GB quota and if you exceed you pay for the extra as well. Complete ludicrious, if you ask me.

I got to find out finally how much it is to buy the Apple MacBook Air - 995 Rials. Sure, I'll just sell myself and apply for an additional loan. Uhuh.

If you're looking to waste your time, then you might as well go otherwise don't even bother, you can get better deals through various computer and telecommunications shops around the Muscat area or maybe even Dubai if you're willing to go the distance.

Choice is yours..

Prince of Persia is back

Ubisoft has finally officially announced that a new Prince of Persia game will be released around the 2008 holidays (Summer? Christmas?) but has yet to announce the subtitle of the newly mentioned installment of the franchise but it's rumored to be either Prince of Persia: Ghosts of the Past or Prince of Persia Prodigy.

There are too many details to be mentioned apart from the obvious facts that it will be a totally new prince with new characters and storyline; this will come as a pre-release of the anticipated Prince of Perisa: Sands of Time movie being produced by multi-million action producer Jerry Bruckheimer in 2009.

You can check out a few of the websites that offer details about the new game by clicking here, here, here, here, and here.

The game will be released for all the game consoles including the Playstation 3, the Xbox 360 and the PC. There is no scheduled release for the Wii. A separate game with different storyline and characters is in the works for the Nintendo DS system.

You can check out the official new Prince of Persia website through this link.

new Batman 2: The Dark Knight images

The suspense is killing me into the momentum that is building up to the release date of The Dark Knight sometime in May or June, I believe.

I was able to get these images from Yahoo! Movies. Check them out.

Rest In Peace: Heath Ledger.

COMEX: is it worth even attending?

I have seen the supplement provided by a newspaper today and it shows some fairly good deals on some established products for exhibitors in COMEX 2008 at the Oman International Exhibition Centre.

I have yet to check out the exhibition tomorrow afternoon or evening so should come up with a summary by then.

close, but no cigar

You probably known by now the new ADSL+2 packages that Omantel is now offering. But I figured that since I had been yapping about the subject for the past several days of last week, I might as well round it up.

The details are somewhat still sketchy; there are three types of packages; Residential; Commercial; and Governmental.

Residential packages offer up to 8Mbps speeds with unlimited downloads and 512 KBps upstream, with 7 email accounts, free antivirus and spam protection and no monthly rental with no caps according to Omantel's newly established FUP - Fair Usage Policy.

Commercial packages have the same benefits with a maximum download speed of 16Mbps and most likely 1Mbps upstream that includes 15 free email addresses from the Omantel server and antivirus/spam protection.

Governmental packages have not been displayed on the online portal for the company but had been earlier released in the press release in written media yesterday. And as always, they get the best deals.

Its fair to say that some of the prices included for the packages are somewhat reasonable in a manner, but others are completely ridiculous since there is no capping for any of the residential packages apart from the basic 512KBps and 8Mbps packages while the commercial and governmental packages don't have a mention of this FUP that Omantel is to imply.

Omantel has said online that it has come out with this result after comparing prices, packages and policies from different ISPs around the world to end with this. In all honesty, most ISPs - professional ISPs - give their users/customers unlimited downloads no matter what speed they get based on a flat monthly/yearly rate. Why is Omantel so insistent to stay behind the developed world?

I'd say this to those folks at Omantel; Close, but no cigar.

You can check out these packages from the Omantel website.

leaked: new ADSL packages

You know those vague printed media advertisements? Especially in the newspapers? The ones that say something about 'Power'?

They're the introduction of the new Omantel ADSL package strategy.

Only the picture above got leaked somehow to someone but quickly got removed from the Internet website to the company, but not before getting a grasp of the thumbnail.

Guess we'll also have to wait until tomorrow's papers come out.

Stargate: Continuum

Everyone knows about Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis. And everyone including me thought that the ending to the original Stargate series sucked big time.

It seems though that the folks behind the Sci-Fi network wish to rekindle the affair with their audience by recapturing the magic that was once in the days when Richard Dean Anderson was still with the SG-1 team before they cut him of the show in season 9.

This is all to be launched in a new Television movie called - Stargate: Continuum.

The story carries on with ingredients of the two shows (i.e.: SG-1 & Atlantis) by reuniting both teams with Col. Jack O'Neill. In a threat to the Earth made by the Go'ald, along with other unseen enemies, the newly assembled team must devise a plan to conquer the threat once and for all.

The trailer above pretty much describes the rest.

The movie is set to be released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on July 29th, 2008.

get ready to change your digital experience?

Finally, the day has come when such an event we thought would never occur. Where, we - as Omanis and citizens of the Sultanate of Oman - will boldly go where none of us have gone before. Can we truly admit now that we are a developing nation?

The answer lies within time itself.

Today, Omantel is going to announce its new long term strategy in regards to the Internet, the Oman Mobile/Omantel merger and what other services it would be enforcing through this year (hint: 3G+ for Oman Mobile) all in a press conference.

It is said in the press release in various written media that Omantel will introduce new ADSL packages that will accomodate to the customer's pockets as well as be the cheapest in the entire Gulf region (which I find that hard to believe).

Let's just try and give them the benefit of the doubt - shall we?

PS: maybe as part of their strategy, they could change their stupid logo.

21

From the moment you see this movie's trailer at the cinema you get an idea that the entire plot is about gambling and how to entertain yourself with the luxury of being absolutely rich. But that's where you're mistaken because the entire idea of the movie is not so much about gambling and the such but rather about one very simple mathematical substance: variable change.

21 is a movie about young simple maths geniuses who put themselves to the test of counting gambling cards in a game of Black Jack who all study at the prestigious M.I.T. institute of higher education who get involved by invitation because of their extraordinary mental abilities and skills.

Along the way they enjoy the riches and what not that their abilities enable them and get them when used to their advantage when they are at the betting tables. Throughout the story you find out about this young man and his desperate need to fill in a financial void to enable him to go to medical school at MIT. His luck at the gambling table finally runs out when he is caught in the act.

So what do you think he does?

The movie, besides the plot, is really watchable and quite entertaining in comparison to the Ocean's trilogy, also adds a certain twist of his own.

I'd recommend it for everyone who is of legal age.

Hope you get to enjoy it as much as I did..

Sitting All Alone In My Room

I sit all alone in my room
Contained in my own solitude

I sit all alone in my room
So as not to let anyone steal my thoughts
To drain away
My only freedom in my speech, in my guts

A handful of people I trust
People who I can sit with to joke, laugh and with no dignity - curse

I sit all alone in my room
So I can savior my soul to myself
To contain the feelings that I would otherwise regret

But most of all
I sit all alone in my room
So I can just be alone
So that nobody bothers me by striking up a tone

news for OmanTel & Oman Mobile subscribers

A few days ago, I had read the letter from the chief of board of directors of OmanTel as it was published in the local newspapers about the results as of 31st December, 2007. In it, the person describes the 'accomplishments' that OmanTel has achieved along the way, its profits and losses and its potential growth. But one section of the page had caught my eye which was what kind of services that OmanTel and Oman Mobile were going to roll out in the near future.

It said that it expects to launch Oman Mobile 3G+ service throughout its network during the third quarter of this year (2008) - so good news for you there. It also vaguely mentioned the launching of broadband services in different forms - and I remember distinctly a while ago in some written media that it had said in a press release that it was going to launch VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) services, along with the expected release of different packages of broadband services to accommodate to the needs of the community in the Sultanate of Oman. Although there really is no point in rolling out the new services if they can't fix the old ones, most importantly: efficiency of the network (i.e.: consistent disconnection from the network on several occasions). Having said that, all we can really do is just sit and wait while they keep making 365 million more Rials every now and then.

And last but not the bit least, the expected merger between OmanTel and Oman Mobile is coming in early 2009. They've hired a professional consultant to help them out in this case and they can expect a can of whoop-ass if they don't achieve their desired goals from the government.

make everyday Earth Day

For more information about Earth Day and how to make this a more greener planet, visit: Rustle The Leaf.